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Real's Reality
"There's also an interesting conversation going on at Jogin.com, which started with this post from the author, basically a rant, describing how inconvenient and even hostile Real Player is. It would be like any other rant, except an employee of Real Networks replied with some insights into the company's wrongdoings and somewhat explained Real's undeterred hostility towards those who downloaded the free version of its player. Furthermore, a consultant, who used to work at Real Networks, replied, sharing some questionable practices Real engaged in, such as hiding a variety of "add-ons" at the bottom of the page, hoping that the user would not scroll down to un-check the selections, and then charging his credit card for add-ons when he signed up for paid version on Real One."
Q: What do microsoft and RealNetworks have in common?
A: It takes a HD format to remove their software.
G-Force music visualization
I know we are all REALLY sad about REAL's demise.. I think it is more to do with their annoying habits of putting themselves in the start menu, the quickstart, the system tray, and anywhere else they can get...
I know why I don't use Real player anymore...
Real Player used to be a simple piece of audio (then later video) playing software. Now its becomeiwng one of those applications that wants to dominate your system and do everything from playing media to making eggs. RealMessage Center? A constantly running tray icon? Asking me every 2 seconds if I _really_ want it to not be the default player for everything...
RealNetworks might not be having troubles if they were able to produce significantly more advanced codecs and didn't resort to bloat. No innovation, no company, regardless of whether your player can polish my shoes or not.
Its a miracle!
webpage
Their player hijacked your system. At least RealOne played a little nicer. It still has that dynamic app that constantly wants to access the Internet. I have to kill it with ZoneAlarm quite frequently. I agree with this article. Real's problems aren't caused by Microsoft, it's REAL . . .
With their helix community effort, they are trying to gain the benefits of being open while keeping the core parts secret. However, to become the standard, they should make the full featured helix server freely open source and fully free - with no restrictions/purchases/restrictive 'binary-only' non-commercial licenses. This will allow them to establish a non-Microsoft standard, allowing them to compete in the marketplace on a equal playing field, selling products such as helix video encoders and "pro" real players.
I like what the car talk guys had to say about Real:
http://cartalk.com/Radio/windowsmedia-switch.html
Car Talk will now be available via the Windows Media Player, rather than RealMedia. That's right, we're unceremoniously dumping RealMedia.
Why? Because, for a long time, we've had tons of complaints about RealNetworks. And the one that ticks us off the most is the perceived trickery they use to sell their premium products. This is just our opinion, mind you, but it's shared by enough of our listeners, that we finally decided to take action.
Here's the problem. In order to hear our audio, you have to go to Real.com and download their "free" RealPlayer. But when you get to the web site, the free player is harder to find than Osama Bin Laden at night. And the site seems to do everything it possibly can to get you to "buy" a player instead. You have to work very hard to get the free player. And we think that stinks. And get this. It stinks so much that it even makes Microsoft look good by comparison. That's something, huh?
We've heard from many of our fans that have been duped, and who have accidentally shelled out their hard-earned dineros. And we won't even get into the ways that the RealPlayer tries to take over your computer once you install it. So, after surveying the alternatives, we're switching to Windows Media Player (which works on Macs, too).
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
Is that Real Player is a big bloated piece of crap. No one uses it if they have a choice. Microsoft's destroyed a lot of competitors, but in this case, they didn't have to. Real did it themselves.
I remember using Real Player back in like 1996. It was incredible stuff, and it just worked. But then they fell into the trap a lot of other software companies do. They tried to make their software do EVERYTHING, and instead of one doing a couple things well, it did everything poorly.
Can anyone post a link to some OSS codecs server/players for OSS streaming video?
I really don't know if there are any like an XviD/ogg type steaming media we could all push to become popular.
please, we need to stop this madness.
this is unrelated to the hidden paid add-ons, but when using the free player, you get a list of add-ons you want (add to favourites, desktop shortcut, etc etc), the first 4 are unchecked by default, but if you scroll down there are more, which ARE checked. very sneaky if you ask me. they could have easily increased the size of the viewable list from 4 items
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Real Player is losing market share because they suck. Pure and simple. I want my media player to actually play media, not buffer it. And all the extra crap - ads, channels, and such - that clutter the UI are absurd.
If Real Networks thinks it's because of Microsoft, they're in denial.
I once bought a legal version of RealPlayer back in 1999, and it worked great. But as soon as the new version came out, it seemed like my paid for copy started acting screwy, like Real had written code into it so it would work badly as soon as a new version (which would have to be bought again) was available for purchase. Even reinstalling fresh on a fresh install of Windows didn't work in getting back that "flawless" operation. Obviously I can't prove it, but I always got the feeling they purposely wrote destructiveness into the player to force purchases of new versions. Just my take on it.
So now I use Windows Media Player.
Not only that, but the possessive Real's Reality in the headline is OK as well! Although for a moment I thought it was Rael's Reality: I was reading an expose on this assclown, so I thought that was it...
Similar to the RIAA blaming Napster for their poor sales, Real just assumes their business is going doen the toilet because of something MS did (they must have done SOMETHING evil, right?). I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that their product is just bloated spyware, or poor corporate leadership, or the "bunker mentality" at Real that the article mentions...
I stopped using Real products after reading this
Get that, Real? Some of us avoid your products because of your policies and would rather not see the cute little movie rather than give in. Enjoy your bottom line.
Realplayer G2 w/RealJukebox.
Great design. I loved it... then it started happening *cue sad music*... The upgrades... they said "RealONE" was the thing... but all it did was take away my ability to listen to crap online for free.
Free Carolina Hurricanes webcast? Gone. $29.95 a month.
Free Carolina Panthers webcast? Gone. Buy NFL Field Pass.
Free racing webcasts? Gone.
Now, I don't mind ads. Heck, I run a website, I live on ads [cheap plug]go to oldos.org and clickyclicky on my google text ads [/cheap plug]. I wouldn't mind listening to ads during the game, watching cheap flash ads before listening, or anything like this. How come TV can survive without needed subscriptions (skin-e-max and h-blow excluded), but internet webcasts can't?
Jay | http://oldos.org
... he is Russian. So, he has actually studied English ;-).
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Here's my take on the situation:
*BUFFERING*
Wouldn't one reason for Real losing out is that Micro$oft's Media Encoder is free as in beer and Real's or Apples, for that matter, aren't? (well, they weren't last time I checked)
Perhaps these practices are why REAL has reportedly lost the single biggest contract they ever had which was broadcasting Major League Baseball play by play for $10 per season per listener/viewer.
i nv estor/hellweg/
While no huge amount of money for REAL, it was one of the single largest revenue sources, much of the rest of the revenue stream was from individual purchases of the player.
Supposedly this year its gone to someone else.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/10/technology/tech
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
But, how are people accidently buying the premium version? How do you accidentally type in your credit card information? I don't know about the rest of the world, but when I type in my credit card info I am *not* surprised when I get billed.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
I stopped using it when it became 'viral' and blatently slimy. Then I tried winamp, which I was already using for files I own. Not so good, in my experience, at finding streaming music I want to hear. Apart from Media Player, whats left? I feel like if I want to hear music through the computer, I have be willing to sell my soul.
No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.
Apparently so. (With the postings, not news.com)
Just for a reference for what I use now:
Some might say that I gave in to the corporate machine; no, I'm simply using the best product for my needs and in WinXP, WMP works very well for most stuff; except for MP3s which I use Winamp 2.x or iTunes. And on Mac, you must give Apple credit for building some good software because iLife '04 rocks. As for linux, I don't use it as a desktop anymore because i can pretty much do it on OSX. Linux: Server yes, Desktop no.Amigori
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
I don't care if Real gets "better" in some magic way. I don't want anything to do with it.
The downside in my personal crusade is, of course, that I can't use sites with no alternate streaming products, which perversely makes me loath Real even more :-)
I've posted this before, but it's a goodie...
TO: Real Networks
SUBJECT: Fuck You All
I am holding myself back in the most intense way at the moment.
I don't care if this is the wrong address to send this to. Your website is a labyrinth of misdirection in which finding the simple thing you want is nigh-impossible. This, after about 20 clicks, was the first email address I came to. If you, as the person receiving this letter, have a shred of humanity left, you will submit this to the proper people. And now, on to my letter.
Where do you people get off?
My task: download Realplayer in order to view some streaming content. A simple project, one would say. Well, first you have to wade through the aforementioned sea of misdirection, all of it aimed at extracting your visa number to buy the completely useless realplayer plus. I realize you people need to make some money, but save it for the server business - it's bad enough that back in the day, you were inferior to several other streaming technologies, but somehow, like scum in water, you rose to the top. Leave the users who are stuck with your products out of your sick little power games.
All I want is Realplayer Basic, to play realmedia, and ONLY realmedia. I am not interested in realjukebox, realdownloadagent, or realbuttplug. I specified this when I was installing it. I also am not interested in having your inferior product play my mp3s, or any format other than your own. This was also specified when I installed. How difficult a concept is this? Anyone can grasp it. And I won't even get into the god-knows-how-many useless "subscribe to our spam service!" checkboxes I have to uncheck, including five which are HIDDEN AT THE BOTTOM OF A STACK OF UNCHECKED ONES. With each click, the bile rises higher in my throat. If I knew a satanist, I would have him summon demons to terrorize your offices.
So then, I go to launch an mp3 out of Agent, and not only does your software launch even though I SPECIFICALLY TOLD IT NOT TO DO THAT, but it's not even Realplayer - it's Realjukebox which I also SPECIFICALLY TOLD IT NOT TO INSTALL.
And here's the real point: if you're going to go ahead and do a fascist coup of my system's preferences and resources (getting your filthy little icons out of my system tray gets more difficult with each new version), why bother pretending that you are giving me a choice? Just go ahead and take it, save me the trouble of unchecking all those boxes and saying No 20 times. Just go ahead, play your little game, and let me get on with removing your annoying system resource wastes from my pristine desktop.
In closing, I would just like to say that I view your company as the most evil force operating on the internet today, and while I would end this with "may God have mercy on your souls" for anyone else (including Bill Gates), for you, I only pray that the people behind your software's design are raped by syphilitic camels at some point.
Burn in hell.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
It is sad when there are so few choices for Windows content delivery these days. It is a sad day every day when nearly all delivery methods are the spawn of villans from world domination cabals. This is what we have come to. The head of these companies down to the contracted foreign programmers should all be ashamed of themselves. Is this what is takes to survive in the corporate world these days? I certainly hope that this downturn reflects people's will to avoid infecting their computers with this crap.
Enough said.
During installation of Real Player, you need to pay close attention and look at every option because they try to pull a fast one on you by hiding certain settings since you need to scroll down to see them.
These kind of things are why they lose so many users.
-BIG ASS LINK to their paid player, and damned near invisible links to their older, free download players.
buffering... buffering...
-Huge application window hogged by distracting crap.
buffering... buffering...
-When people download a media player, it's probably because they want to view some media right fucking now, not after filling out a long-ass registration thing and setting a shitload of preferences.
buffering... buffering...
-That stupid Goddamned tray icon that will not die. Where's the "FUCK OFF" button when you need it? Anytime I see that shit in the systray on a client's machine, I go right into regedit and nuke it because the incessant blinking drives me into a rage.
And last, but certainly not least:
buffering... buffering...
God won't SOMEONE mention Apple or Quicktime in this discussion???
-B
WinAmp used to be a good player, too, but then it added video support.
Are all companies that produce audio players doomed to create crappy video players (please don't do the same MMPLayer)?
The Political Programmer
Sir, I applaud you... never has such rage been so perfectly vomited into an e-mail.
Did you ever get a reply to this?
Real could of owned the world, but heres my run down of why Real hurt themselves, they harrased the customer.
1. Takes 10 minutes of hunting around the website for the free version. Even when you click on the "Free" version, it prompts you to buy it.
2. When loading the program, it asks you to register, then prompts you to buy it, and then loads an html webpage.
Back in the day,
Now Microsoft is using the mpeg4 format, and seems to be taking over HDTV format on Dvd's. They win, everything. They will be the OS and multimedia format of the future.
While I agree Microsoft did use its power to assist in taking over, Real networks interaction with customers was on the level of spammers, horrible salesmen from hell. Customers had a bad experiences and walked away.
If only Quicktime would die too, I'd be happy. Quicktime is so fat and slow that it makes me sick. I won't even install it if a cool new movie only has a preview in *.mov. Quicktime also crashes on me all the time. Stupid piece of crap. I'm sorry, but Windows Media Player is just better than Real and Quicktime. I don't mind supporting M$ because their media player is just BETTER.
I donot know if Real managed to port their COM with XPCOM, but, that would help them leverage the functionality of a component object model for developers to exploit and would have helped them to gain acceptance from the open source community. There were more complaints about the install process and the capturing of the file types rather than the actual streaming technology itself. This is a shame for a technology company trying to provide an alternative for a/v streaming. May be the management needs to rethink its priorities regarding this. And whoever the mailer(s) were, and if they are reading this post - nice to know that there are such honest people who are willing to voice their opinions.
I can't seem to read the article...it just says "Buffering, buffering, buffering".
I hate sigs.
...they don't have an OS. If they were smart enough, and innovative enough, they would have made an OS by now and integrated their player with it. This would have strongly enhanced the user's online experience.
I'm sure many readers will find this gem interesting:
About 3 years ago I made mention in a closed streaming media group discussion of Real's flaws in their DRM 'solution'. This was widely published, and I was not the starter of the thread. However, I did drop the line (or something like it) of the solution being 'amateur hour'. Real's at-that-time marketing manager was on the list, and proceeded to track down my particulars and call up management at my company accusing me of 'hacking' their DRM product. I understand he was quite miffed. Ofcourse I posted this back to the list and didn't hear a peep.
The long and short of this story - not only does Real make a shitty spamware/adware/annoyanceware product and try to get developers for free with their 'community source' claptrap, but they also go to interesting lengths to stir up bullshit to protect their interests.
These days I am still at the same company, and architect my own product line. Whenever a customer asks about support for RealMedia, I laugh. Then I tell them this story. And thats the last we hear of the request. Oddly enough, I have never had anyone doubt me - gee I wonder why!
A tip for Real - listen to your customers. And if you have bugs and/or shitty software, fix them.
... is the uninstall program. My Dell laptop came with it installed, but it was gone shortly after I saw the icon come up on the first boot. I can't stand nag-ware, and even the paid-for versions of RealPlayer nag you incessantly about upgrading to the version-of-the-week. What has this to do with Real Network's market share? Hopefully, a LOT!
it is spyware crap.
I tried to rtfa, but I --buffering--
RealOne Player for Mac OS X is a sweet app. No prefs hijacking, looks good, works even better. I like it more than Apple's Quicktime Player. Perhaps there is just something about Mac OS X that commands respect from developers - Windows version of this same app sounds like a real POS.
Really, I doubt their profits are being hurt by Microsoft being anti-competive. It's closer to Real being Anti-Good. Who wants to use a bloated peice of garbage like Real Player anyway...
Realplayer sucks donkey. See the above +5 posts. That said, if you really need realplayer do the following. Get a pro version off the file-sharing network of your choice. You can argue all day about companies going bankrupt because of people stealing software, but based on how horrible they are, don't you want realplayer to go out of business? Everyone would stop encoding to them and nobody would need their nasty syphillis-infected free player. So pirate their player. You'll be happy you did. I have realOne and it doesn't bug or nag or take up tray space or anything like that. It opens .rm and .ram files and thats all.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Both companies are aggressive; they rape people's privacy, and will do any trick possible to get your money. They know no honesty.
Destroy both of them, I'd say.
Right from the outset they were as money-grubbing as they could be. Maybe it costs a lot to write video codecs or something, but seriously lots of software companies can be profitable without being so obnoxious to their end users. Look at Adobe, they make plenty of money selling Acrobat and the free viewer doesn't suck.
And what is the deal with commercial websites? It seems like they have some sort of mania which prevents them from simply posting MPEGs. I mean, we get real, MS, or QuickTime. Seriously lame.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
They're making me side with Microsoft >shiversThe only thing Real does well is avoid bankrupcy. I'm sure they will be required reading in MBA courses. There is no reason they should be in business, none at all.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Why? I mean really, why? "Ooooooo, it works on Linix. Ahhhhhhhh..." Sorry, but Real is a real piece of shit, and they will have to do a lot more than port it to Linux to win "real" respect.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I never installed it, but I've seen it on other people's machines and it launches a popup when you play media files. WTF!? Showing you advertising simply for viewing content already on your hard drive! It's obscene (IMO). I'd never install that crap.
Is there any open source alternative for media serving? Why can't people just use that?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Gstreamer is LGPL
Free Software NUT
You know, I read this piece and I thought to myself, "What's new here?" They interviewed one ex-exec, an analyst, and then simply regurgitated the events of the last few years. It all looks really pretty, though, which is what CNET does best.
I hadn't tried real's helix player for months, and decided to give it a try a couple days back when I found a link mplayer didn't seem to like. If anyone's looking for an official player from real that actually seems well designed, they might want to give it a chance. The Linux client at least seemed really nice. Clean gtk2 based gui, uncluttered interface, and it dosn't seem to want to do much aside from playing audio and video. The only downside is that it's nearly as much of a pain to find on the helix site as the free version of realplayer is on real's site. Otherwise I think pointing to it might be a viable option for companies providing real streams.
Everything will be taken away from you.
However, there are obviously some talented people in Real. Their player was bundled with my N-Gage and is very capable of playing pre-recorded videos and TV news streams over GPRS. It's just a shame these talented people hooked up with a company that went so off the rails.
fucku@real.com
realplayersucks@realplayer.com
pissoff@real.com
bob@bob.com
bill@microsoft.com
fucku2@real.com
fucku2xwithdonkey@real.com
fuckusidewayswithbroomstick@real.com
At this point I was tired of making creative statements of protest against registration so I gave a fake hotmail account.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I still use winamp (winamp 2 even), but most people these days use windows media or iTunes (on a mac) to play their mp3s.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I find the "Upgrade to pro?" each time it starts highly annoying.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
All so that when some idiot plugs his iPod into his PC the thing will pop up iTunes or whatever and do something or other, and the idiot can exclaim "Wow! Magic Apple software duhhhhhh!".
Remember when Real made all of those press releases about Helix and releasing it as Open Source?
Neither do I, really. Don't think anybody cares.
This guy is way out there
Hey, I don't appreciate all of this anti-Real Networks and anti-Microsoft senti...[BUFFERING 0.03%]
"All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde
Ever try removing all the little references to "real" in the registry? Realthis Realthat... Now "Real Player" gets installed to something like "RealJunk" or "Real Networks".
BTW What's going on here? Decoder tests show that later versions of Winamp are among the best. Why do mad and QuickTime seem better.
TAL is on iTunes - example link. $3.95/episode - yikes! Just search for "Ira Glass" as the artist.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Its not my fault, really that fact of the matter is that my beatiful netmd player's software (openmg) sucks worse than real. I dont understand how they can call it "open" it is so crap, it limits me on how much i can transfer my own music to and from the md. Anyhow enough rant, real works alright for mding.
Kevin
I dislike Real and the opt out sales just as much as anyone else, but for all you out there that actually want to fix your problem instead of just complain about it, I have the solution. CHANGE YOUR CONNECTION SPEED IN THE TOOLS MENU you can find this under Tools => Preferences => Connection if you have a dialup modem and try to say you get 1.5MBps, you will get constant buffering. If you have a cable modem and tell it you have a 56K connection, you will get a crappy frame by frame picture, the stream that someone with a 56K modem would get. Run the freakin test connection button. it's fixed any problem i've had with buffering or quality before. If you think it's lieng, do a speed test from some other site. If it says you are not connected to the internet or the service is unavailable, think about what programs on your computer do that... think firewalls.. firewalls block access... if you give it access within the firewall, ya think it will fix that issue?
Try changing the date on your computer before you install Real, And then change the date again.
See if it just isn't the quality of software has just increased around paid Real. And thus that Paid Real's quirks became more apparent.
Just a thought also have the computer disconnected from the network. Gotta make a safe test enviroment. You have to have the media already on the computer.
jet audio. While not perfect, its better then real bullshit player, and doesnt totally take your machine over either. (make sure to set the preferences though)
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
... Mplayer in Windows.
As the article says, its not clear whether microsoft of Real's own incompetence has hurt them, but either way I'm glad that I rarely see
a spam and advertising force-feeding shop that happens to own a once-good audio and video encoding formats, and now won't let anyone else support those formats because everyone would ditch the ad-ridden RealOne garbage in a flash if that's ever the case!
The sooner those bozos go bankrupt, the better.
Check out the blog posts, especialy the third one. Apperanly real paid $2.5 million to a design company for design advice, and also hired an advertizing firm. The design company told them that they needed to make the software more use friendly, etc. The Advertizing company discovered that Real had universal name recgonition online (along with microsoft, google) but at the same universal distain.
Both were canned, and none of their suggestions were taken.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
and also to assert why I hate RealNetworks,
The product sucks because it's heavily emcumbered.
I recall when RealPlayer 1.0 came out. I found it, and started downloading it immediately.
Then the next version came out, about... oh, about 12 minutes after my modem finished sucking down the first one. Err...
So, pull that one down, because they changed the format and nothing works with the old one. That one's good for a week, and they have a "cool" version for sale as well.
I'm deciding if I'm going to buy this "cool" version and show my support, only to discover that a "new" version is now out, and the current one is useless. I'm starting to see a pattern, here.
I start to download that one, only to discover that 2 more version have been released before my modem can finish. I start to download those, and Real responds by publishing 12 more upgrades, all of which force the obsolence of their predecessor.
About that time, cablemodems are invented, so I get one. I begin to download that week's RealAudio version... at a whopping 3mbs. But, it's no use. In the 25 seconds needed to pull it, those fucks have released 18 more incompatable versions, all of which make the prior ones useless.
So, screw Real, they're little more than an upgrade scam. THAT is why they're a failure.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
I believe they should take a page from Macromedia. Make is super easy to download and install the ALWAYS FREE player (Flash, Shockwave,etc) ... but just make great developer products or serverside streaming components... let the websites themselves that want to charge for content do it... and you charge them a commercial license for the privelege.
I mean they should charge those who plan to make money off using the "REAL" product... not the other way around. (Like the example of them PAYING for rights to MLB to stream their content and selling it to consumers... when they consumers get those live games basically free on TV... let MLB buy your server side applications and let them handle subscriptions if they want to charge for it)
It doesn't make sense to charge the consumer for this "ultra-nifty" player with "premium" content because consumers can get essentially the same thing free of charge... (so who will buy it just to listen to streaming audio?! or even video?)
meanwhile if you make it easier for developers of content to publish their stuff... maybe have more intuitive tools for doing all things audio and video... perhaps even an appliance like google has for search which can automatically find all audio and video content on your site to encode and stream it? I just think the "paying for a player model" is going to go the way of "paying for a browser" model... and you saw where Netscape went...
From the Article: Some industry veterans blame Hollywood for the lack of progress in the online video market, because the major studios are reluctant to allow the digital distribution of movies, having witnessed the devastating effect of online music on the recording industry. What devastating effect on the recording industry? As far as I'm concerned (and many others), they are doing fine. Even if we assume their (RIAA) statistics are not biased in any way, there are other factors (read: stupid business moves like trying to shun the internet rather than embrace it and keeping cd prices high) that contribute to the percentage of decreased sales.
Even if MS didn't include WMP in windows I still wouldn't use Real player. The hostile way it behaves on systems is just unacceptable for any software. I take this lawsuits the same way as if Gator was saying that its sales were hurt by Google's monopolistic practices: Nonsense. It has nothing to do with leveraging the OS platform to push a media player and everything to do with a bloated piece of spyware people REFUSE to load. Personally, I use WinAMP.... And I long for the day when Spybot S&D or my AV tool quarantine and delete the little sucker to oblivion.
-Andres.
Try Live365. They have thousands of online broadcasters and a huge variety of genres, all broadcasting in MP3 streams. Not all of them are free -- some are "Premium" broadcasters that require membership (membership is only a few bucks a month, however -- quite the deal, really). And the free stations do have occational ads. But you can listen with the MP3 player of your choice. Also, you can generally bookmark this site once it's playing in your MP3 player, and in so doing skip the hassle of going to the Live365 Web site every time you want to tune in. As an added bonus, if you so desire, you can sign up w/ Live365 and start your own Webcast.
There's a lot of good streaming music (and talk, and comedy, and...) stations still out there -- you don't need Real's or anyone else's media player to find them for you.
I went to the Real website, and clicked on three fairly obvious links, and Firefox asked me where to save the installer for the free version. (I chose to cancel, BTW)
.au site, ok, just pick one at random)
I don't see how it's difficult to find:
First click from the main page to the download or buy RealOne. (The link was cunningly hidden in the top-right corner. I admit the choice of location here is a little unfriendly, but I saw it within 2 seconds of the page rendering)
Second click to specify 'Download the free player'. (Bottom-right, large obvious letters, spotted instantly)
Third click to specify the mirror site to use. (Hmm.. no
Are the people who had to 'hunt for 10 minutes' blind?
(If so, then maybe the time was spend waiting for the text-to-speech to read out the whole page?)
Real might have a lot of bloat in their software, but don't blame them for your inability to click on three easy to see links.
Important info:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
http://dieoff.org/synopsis.htm
http://www.peakoil.net
RealOne on Mac OS X is actually a pretty decent, light-weight player. It plays Real Media streams and only Real Media streams, to my knowledge. That's all I need it for. And once I found the Free Download link, everything was pretty simple after that. Register with a bogus E-mail address, create some dumb-ass password and forget about it. And if I want to remove it, drag it to the trash.
I find that a lot of software for OS X is like this, whereas the Windows versions almost always require some sort of surgical procedure to remove. Do the Windows programming departments of companies nowadays have more programmers just to put in the extra, spyware garbage? Because that kind of stuff certainly isn't in any prominent OS X applications that I can think of.
Back when it was last mentioned a few times ago on Slashdot, I also posted a rant about RealPlayer. It was back in 2001 or so, targeting RealPlayer 8.
http://krellan.com/rant/real.html
The version of RealPlayer I ranted about, RealPlayer 8, was probably a low water mark for them. Horrible indeed.
Recently, I installed RP 10 and it is actually a bit better and friendlier! Not 100% ethical yet, but getting closer. Here's an update to my earlier rant:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/krellan/16344.htm l
I look forward to trying the Open Source versions of the player (Helix, etc.)....
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
Realnetworks is on the decline because, plain and simple, their software sucks. I mean seriously. I'd take WMP over it any day. -vlc user.
Never had much beef with RealPlayer myself. At the moment I'm using RP8 on irix and it works very well. I use it to watch tutorial videos for software (they're in rm format) and playing mp3s (the default media player on irix doesn't seem to play mp3s). The first few times I used it it would core-dump on exit, but it runs fine now. Not sure what that was about. I didn't have a hard time finding it either. I remember the free players were harder to find on their page so I know what the bitching is about, but right now the site seems easy enough to navigate.
I'm really sorry to whoever owns me.com
On "dumb" forms I have started using example.com. I know it won't actually work and bother anyone.
The problem with that approach is that Real is up against MS and Apple, who don't charge for the server, the encoder, or the player. Both quicktime and windows media exist because they contribute to the MacOS/Windows "user experience". They use qt and wmp as minor bonuses to sell the products that make them real (no pun intended) money: selling more Macs or more Windows licenses.
Real can't do that. Streaming media *is* their product, so they can't afford to just give it away just because Apple and Microsoft are. That means Real is doomed. It's been pretty obvious that Real lost he streaming media war ever since Apple started getting exclusive deals to do movie trailers online and MS started pushing for streaming wma/wmv on every site they could get.
And that's just looking at their business model The outlook for Real is even worse if you start considering the quality of their software compared with wmp or quicktime...
0 1 - just my two bits
From their RealPlayer page:
I loved OldVersion.com when WinAmp started sucking ass.
They do keep them available, however hidden they are.
The reason they are in trouble is because of their poor vision of the future.
We (company of 40,000) looked at their multicasting technology and news delivery in 1997. We liked what we saw and wanted to license or buy it for the entire company. They said "NO" - Real still wanted access to our desktops in the form of ads. I guess they thought there was a lot of money in that.
Think logically, why would any CIO sign off on a product to keep his employees busy watching ads instead of doing real work?
They did crawl back (at least a year later) and try to sell just the engine piece but no one was interested. There was better stuff available out there and cheaper by the time they realized their mistake.
... have you... come on, admit it.
Pansy.
Ooooh, vorbis, sounds scary. I bet MP3 was scary too the first time you tried to fire up BladeENC you anal monkey.
ID3 tags, WHATS THAT??!?!?!!
Seriously, vorbis is idiot-stupid to create and sounds as good as AAC without the licensing. So eat a dick my friend.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
... you should have scooted on over to The ShoutCAST Yellow Pages
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I don't understand everyone's problem!?
Realplayer is, without a doubt, the most user-friendly, featureful trojan I have ever unintentionally installed.
(Well, yeah, I thought I was getting a free little utility to play *.rm files, but I had no idea of the "bargain" I was about to get.)
Well, let's look at Freeamp. First of all, it's now called "Zinf", continuing the tradition of stupid names for open source programs. Second, when we go to the Zinf home page, we have to click on "Download", one of a number of options (including "SF", which developers know as SourceForge but users do not.) On the "Download" page, the first option, in typical user-clueless style, downloads the Linux source distribution. You also have to download and build the "MusicBrainz 2.0 client library", whatever that is. "RPMs will be available soon for RedHat 9". No date is given.
Further down, there's a Windows version, but it's three revs behind. But at least there's an installer and a binary.
If you want to build the thing, there are obscure instructions. ("You'll need perl and NASM in order to compile the latest MP3 decoder assembly optimizations. If you don't have NASM, you can still compile successfully, but you'll only be able to use some of the older optimizations written in gas.")
The Windows version is built with MSVC 5, circa 1997. Builds require some workarounds. ("NOTE: In order for the build to succeed you will need to install the SGI STL. ")
Now consider a typical Windows user. Will they be able to figure out what they're supposed to do?
Or worse, someone who bought a Linux machine at WalMart and wants to run Freeamp, er, Zinf. Will they succeed building this on Thiz Linux? What do you think?
This is halfway on topic, talking about crappy software. I hate it when software is not multi-user aware:
Broderbund and Maxis are infamous for this. Both "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 15" and "The Sims" require you to run as Administrator.
There is absolutely NO FUCKING REASON why any app -- except for certain system utilities (and games and typing tutors aren't those) -- should require Admin. It's fucking lazy sloppy programming.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Like all of the above, I too got fed up with anything Real has put out lately, for obvious reasons. That and it spontaneously reboots everyone's machines here in the lab.
Did some searching, found Media Player Classic (Article)- it's an open source clone of Windows Media Player before it got all colorful, space wasting, and less functional (WMP 8-9). Plus, with a bit more Google searching, I found Real codec packs for it as well. On the rare occasion I need to play Real content, I can.
Maybe, just maybe, if they had Microsoft's practically unlimited budget to give WMP away for free and develoop WMP, they wouldn't have to be so desperate to get money.
Remember kids, Netscape and REAL probably didn't want to go down this path, but they were competing with a monopolist willing to give away a product for free to put them out of business.
Yes, they should have learned from Netscape's mistakes, but nobody has beaten Microsoft when Microsoft has been giving away a free product in competition with one you pay for. What would happen to Quicken if Microsoft Money got built into the OS?
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
WMP 6 was awesome.
Try Media Player Classic. Completely open source, looks just like WMP6. Plays Real formats too.
Let me begin by saying that I don't run windows so I'm not all upset about the windows realOne player shenanigans.
I run Linux. The realplayer on linux runs fine, it plays live real audio and video streams for me. (mplayer does everything else)
Windows users may want to go try one of the new players. (there's one written in python you know... it is very simple, no bloat.)
that's up to you though, it doesn't affect me much.
Real network's server software is pretty good though. Better than windows media server.
- It runs on linux.
- It has an excellent system for live stream redundancy. Every step of the way from the camera to the player you can have multiple redundant systems so that no matter what; your live event does not die. I cannot over-state the importance of this when you are running a live event for a paying customer!
- It is extremely modular. Especially now with the mostly open source helix software you can write/modify most capabilities.
I am admin for several Real and windows media servers.
Windows servers are an all around pain in the ass. Maybe that biases me towards Real.
The windows media server is a black box, when it does something odd like suddenly stop logging or something all I can do is apply the standard MS remedy: restart the service.
With the helix servers running on linux I can see what's going on. maybe I've just been spoiled by using OSS all the time.
Oh, and have you ever encountered a bug is MS software, emailed a developer and had the problem resolved?
helixcommunity.org actually has developers you can talk to.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Many who stream recordings over the Internet use the proprietary streaming protocols of WMP or Real instead of HTTP streaming because it's thought to be easier to record an HTTP stream than to record WMP or Real. I'm guessing that copyright owners give a royalty discount if it's thought to be "hard" to record a transmission.
We need a slim, fast, powerful, free media player that will be to streaming media what Google is to search engines.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
It seems to me the 'Jane' is missing a computer industry standard. "...how pissing people off can be a revenue generator" seems like an obviously bad tactic, but lets seriously think about this. Microsoft does this all the time. So does AOL, and many other companies.
As for my best example of how companies do exactly this to make money.
A) Visioneer Paperport Scanners.
Used to work right next to the people that were the outsourced support for them. Thier first response was that the customer "needed to upgrade" thier version of the software for like $40 if I remember right. And then, the problem they called on may or may not work with the new version of the software.
-or-
B) Crappy Utah Based Computer Manufacturer that has nothing to do with Hewlett Packard. They had the toll support line, and then the pay-per-incident ($34.95) 800 support line. If someone called in we got a credit card before we would help them, or else refer them back to the toll number.
But then there is the old "your system does not meet the minimum system requirements" line that takes care of a lot of people. They have opened the software and installed it, so there is no chance for a refund so just one less end-user to support.
Then for Microsoft, try to set Windows Messanger to disabled on XP Home.
And AOL never seems to uninstall once you connect through them. And it installs with everything.
It seems like in a country of "the best and the brightest" we have a lot of lazy companies that would rather make money out of mediocrity than through products and service. Companies are more excited to get on to someone's monthly credit card and fly below the radar for a couple years than to assure the customer is not too frustrated to use thier service.
Just another anonymous $0.02.
Helix downloads And unfortunately you have to create an account.
Whenever I sign up somewhere useless that wants an email address, I use support@real.com
I'd like to think that I am partially responsible for their demise.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Winamp 2.x, wonderful player, who didn't/doesn't have this. Winamp 3, terrible, bloated, slow, just crappy, but, decent video support and cool skins. Winamp 5, everything you love about 2, nothing you hate about 3. Plus the video version of shoutcast is pretty cool if you cam find a decent stream. Winamp 5 adresses everyone grievences with 3, forever to load, instability, resource hog, etc, its a really great player, and for $15 more you get all sorts of other features like ripping/burning cds. This sounds like astroturf, but i just really love Winamp 5, it restored my faith in nullsofts llama ass whupping abilities.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The recent Helix milestones are great
Clean looking player, no bloat, great quality, plugin gets even the most troublesome pages (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod, for example) working just sweet
There's a 0.2.1 Milestone (crack out the party hats - we got a 0.2.1 milestone!, but I digress..) out. There are Solaris, Symbian (!), GNU/ Linux RPMs and tars with installer, as well as the src, obviously
you can get it here
There are still shed loads of forms to click and agree to, you gotta signup, etc, etc. but they *say* this is part of their new, GPL-friendly and OSI-certified ways.
http://milkshake.dexy.org
Go to the BBC News site first and get the link from there (it'll be under one of their video clips). Saves wading through all the sales puff for the paid-for player. Does anyone use the paid-for version anyway?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
real alternative allows you to play all realmedia files without having to install realplayer.
The poster was claming everything should be in ~/etc. Basicaly the same, except every user gets their own version.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
To rip to MP3 without paying for the premium version of the software, neither WMP nor Real will allow it. WMP of course is trying to herd everyone to its proprietary format, and I haven't followed Real closely enough to know what they are doing.
iTunes, though, on both Mac and Windows, allows free encoding to MP3 format (and others, including AAC, etc).
TERRORIST DRILL!!
*Grabs monitor and throws it out the window, kicks comp case, picks up chair and smashes case repeatedly, rips out video card and waves it around with his mouth like a dog, pulls out HD and stuffs it down his pants, rips calendar off the wall and lights it on fire, uses burning calendar to light the drapes and carpet on fire, throws pens across the room, pours coffee on papers, flips over the desk, kicks down the door and runs screaming towards elevators*
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Especially those serving paid content.
One common argument is "real is the standard", "real is dominant", "real has the largest installed base" etc.
But, with WMP getting more installed base on windows, if that is the main argument, why not use Windows Media instead? Or Quicktime? (not as much installed base as Real or Windows Media but the player comes with OSX and is free to install on windows plus I think the streaming server and mabie the encoder is free too)
(This doesn't work with a popup blocker)
Open real.com and wait till it has finished loading.
Close webbrowser
Select "Download FREE Player" from the popup
It's not as though I live in New Zealan.........
Oh shit
As you consider how you want to present your corporate webpages to the public, do you want to share in this wrath?
If you are in business to sell a product, please stick with common public formats and don't ask us to install proprietary crap to see your site.
I have yet to see any site content good enough to warrant the irritation I have to go through not only to load the proprietary crap, but to expunge it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
...I'm sticking with Media Player Classic. Think WMP6.4 evolving the way it should. KISS. I don't need a skinnable librarian, I just need a damn media player...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I have been in sales(on the support side) for maaaaany years, and the first thing we learned was : It takes more time to get a customer than to lose one, and a lost customer is usually impossible to get back. Well guess what, Real did not know this I guess. I used Real for years, then I found out they logged my habbits. This made me dump Real, and I'm NOT going back. From time to time I have been checking out new versions, but usually I have stopped my evaluations at their site. When I get to their site and have to really search for the free version I just leave. I once learned that one should never mix morale and finance (from a priest who worked as in accounting) But I guess he was mistaken in my case. Real tried to scrw me (by logging my habits and by trying to make me buy something I did NOT want, so sorry Real, I wont be coming back... :-p
It looks like Real is phunishing Windows users and forcing them to move to Linux to be able to use their software properly. That's anti-competitive according to the Slashdot.
I bought the Real Player a while ago to avoid the advertising of the free version. I bought an old version because for me the extra features of the newer version were useless. Right after that, the old player I bought actually automatically downloaded and installed a free version of the newer version, and started flooding me with spam ads. What's worse, it added a tray program that runs at start-up and kept popping up spam messages on my desktop every now and then. I had problems re-installing the old, paid-for player even after uninstalling the newer, free one. And after prolonged, painful communication with their technical support, I managed to get the old player running again, but it kept insisting on upgrading to the newer, spam-laden player everytime I ran it. After I complained about that and told them that the point I paid $30 for the player was to avoid spam messages and ads, they refused to give me a refund and I ended up with the option of either using an old player that kept nagging me about upgrading (basically dysfunctional as far as I'm concerned), or a newer player that kept flooding with spam. It's like I threw my money away.
Try Real Alternative (realalt121.exe somewhere down the list). It's just the Real codecs plus Media Player Classic, a GPL clone of the old Windows Media Player 6.4. You might also be interested in Quicktime Alternative on the same page. And from MS, you can get the WMV9 codecs for Media Player 6.4 by selecting "Codecs Installation Packages" on this page. Finally, for DIVX/XVID/3VID, you'll want ffdshow-alpha, ac3filter, and DIVX audio (link 6 on the page).
I can't be the first to make this observation, but here goes anyway...
?
Has anyone ever noticed that
THEIR
SOFTWARE
SUCKS
A
BIG
HAIRY
NUT
!
?
Haven't allowed it on any machine of mine in about 3-4 years -- haven't missed it, either.
Thank you for this opportunity to share.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Now they know that something has leaked from the compagny mail server and was archived along with the sender name.
Great
hey want some porn ? it's here : sexe cb and sexe par cb. Suck it all !
Ok. I don't know this for sure, but I got a pretty good gut-feeling, since I can't recall ever hearing about that /mbr option before.
fdisk /mbr is probably as well documented and mentioned (by Microsoft) as format /mbr. Which means none, zip, zero for any average user.
I have been using third-party tools to install standard MBRs for years, not knowing of format /mbr until recently, which supposebly has been around for years.
Try format /? on your favorite dos-prompt. See any /mbr mentioned? See any mentioned in the manuals?
This is, as I started out saying, pure specualtion and gut-feeling, but I bet that fdisk /mbr was also one of these really handy, yet thoroughly undocumented things that seems to exist in every Microsoft product released.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
If you are foolish enough to click on a link on a web page and have any portion of Real's software installed on your system, it re-infects your registry with the hideous tkbell.exe startup spyware. It's like Herpes for your computer. You think it's gone but it keeps coming back.
Yes, this is really annoying. Fortunately there is a simple way around the problem...at least on Macs. I haven't ever tried it on Windows.
;-)
To prevent the "Upgrade to Pro" box from popping up for an arbitrarily long time, do the following:
1) Turn on your computer (this won't work if you've already launched the player since the last restart).
2) Set your computer's date to the next time when you'd like to see the "Upgrade to Pro" reminder. For example, 2015 would work well.
3) Launch the QuickTime player and regretfully decline Apple's generous offer to "Upgrade to Pro."
4) Set the computer's time back to the present.
5) Blissfully enjoy a QuickTime movie in an "Upgrade to Pro"-less world.
This is stupid and irritating, but it's far better than most of the stuff Real has pulled over the years, although things have improved recently with RealOne for OS X. As other's have noted, Real's player for OS X doesn't do anything overtly evil, and it's even stable (which is pretty astonishing, after Mac users, at least thos brave enough or ignorant enough to install it, suffered for so long with the crap that was RealPlayer under OS 9).
I doubt this technique is illegal under the DMCA, but IANAL. Be sure to run this by your legal department before you try it.
When someone asks me about installing Real, I tell them:
Real is like a little puppy, they shit all over the place.
Ok I'm getting fed up of those folks that keep saying that "Real works fine on our OS". 1. For mac and linux users; Real will not bombard you with ads and spyware because your a mac and linux user and no-one cares. 2. NO ONE CARES!!!!!!
support@microsoft.com, support@ubisoft.com, support@deepsilver.net, support@mcafee.com etc.
BTW, tme more complex things like real-player.sucks@real.com are not yet taken.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
No wonder they are going down. From the grc site: "We work very hard to ensure that our products comply with all of our privacy policies. We have even taken the extra step of hiring Arthur Andersen to independently review our compliance with our own strict privacy policies. Through its eSure audit program, Arthur Andersen has independently verified that RealNetworks does not store URLs transmitted from the RealDownload product.
Just now, I tried for fun to find the free player, since everyone is nagging about how hard it is to find. I must admit "C'mon, it may be hidden deep, buit it's nothing we can't handle", has always been my thought on this.
If we ever wanted real on our systems, that is, but nevertheless...
I feel I am seriously computer and web-savy. I've found my web trough porn- and warez-circled sites just to find what I was looking for.
Sure, with all those fraudlent sites it's not easy to find actual content, but it is possible.
For real however... I didn't find the "free player". Freakin' impossible. Unless it's put there with a link with 0.1-point writing, I don't believe such a free player exists.
Unless that was what they wanted my VISA-number for, you never know. But seriously, jeez, whadda bunch o' wankers.
Real: screw goat
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Real has no case against Microsoft.
Where do you draw the line between competition and monopoly? In the early 1990s, Microsoft delivered an OS (Windows 3.x) with some bundled accessories, including Windows Media Player.
Does anyone honestly expect Microsoft to not upgrade the bundled accessories when they upgrade the OS?
Paintbrush can save JPEGs and GIFs now. Notepad can open large text files. Wordpad can now open more embedded Office-type items in doc files. So why can't Windows Media Player also improve?
The problem with Real is that they mismarketed their product during the critical dawn of Internet video streaming. Their product also had performance probl ---BUFFERING..0%....34%......78%....--- ems that made people turn to alternatives.
The only real claim to fame Real Player was actually had was in the early days when you could find South Park episodes small enough for download via modem.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Is that anything like "asthmatic"?
fdisk /mbr most definitely is documented - unfortunately, I can't give you a pretty little screenshot, as I write this from my Mac, and my Windows box is running XP, which doesn't include the good ol fdisk command.
/mbr before. I did for fun try it on the XP box, comes back as an invalid option.
Never heard of format
I'm not sure if it was original, but I saw a gentleman in a forum describe Real software as "facehuggerware."
Crushing my karma one post at a time.
A couple of days I downloaded a demo from a game site with minimal ads, and you could close the page after the download started ... they had a sum total of throughput for all their mirrors numbering dozens of gigabit/s. The mirror I downloaded from was at an ISP, I would guess most are and the total cost of bandwith for them is a big fat zilch. Hell if they provide valuable web services they probably get better peering deals in the end ...
Bandwith is cheap, and only getting cheaper.
I checked, you're right. It's been removed in Windows XP. I swear however, that if you fetch a Windows 95/98 (DOS7.0) bootdisk and try it, it works.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Isolated Storage .NET Framework that allows us to store data in files that are automatically grouped by user and by application. Each application has its own isolated storage area for each user. We don't need to worry about where the files are physically stored on disk because that is automatically handled for us.
.NET Framework itself is responsible for managing the files, we need few security permissions to use isolated storage. This means that even code deployed in the Internet or intranet zones can use isolated storage.
.NET Framework only allows our application to access its specific files. However, the reality is that this directory tree is accessible to the user or any administrator on the system because they can manually navigate to this directory structure using Windows Explorer. For this reason, sensitive data should not be stored in clear text within isolated storage.
Isolated storage is a feature of the
Isolated storage has the key benefit that it can be used in no-touch deployed code. Since the
Behind the scenes, isolated storage is maintained as a set of subdirectories beneath the user's profile directory. On Microsoft Windows(R) XP for instance, this is systemdrive:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\IsolatedStorage. A directory tree is automatically created beneath this location, with each application having its own directory, isolated from any other application directories.
The
In most cases, isolated storage is ideal for storing user-specific application settings. It is automatically per-user and per-application, so all we need to do is store our settings data as files within the isolated storage area.
Storing User Configurations
I always look at executables in a hex editor, there's a place where all the valid options are there, you just try each one. That's how I found out about /mbr...
It works in the XP recovery console. I used it to remove lilo once.
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
At least they're trying. Me, I'll stick with Helix Player on Linux.
Real's "openness" is a hollow gesture. You'll notice the license agreement prohibits turning Real-encoded media into any other format. Which is why I have to use underhanded methods to re-encode Real programs to MP3 in real time to listen to on my iPod.
Until Real let me convert to MP3 easily to listen to on portable devices, the chances of my supporting anything they do are zero.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Who cares if Real developed for Linux if it's bad software in the first place? What kind of merit does that give Real?
... something media player has never offered.
Something that works, even poorly, is genernally better than nothing at all. Real allowed Linux users to stream video media to their PCs long before other applications (mplayer, xine, etc.) were available. Yes, it sucked, but it sucked less than not being able to watch NASA-TV or listen to NPR would have, which was the alternative.
So yes, Real does deserve some credit for making their product available on free platforms
Now we have mplayer and xine, and can watch pretty much any video displayable under windows or Mac OS X, and Real's usefulness is past (particularly given the security issues with their software), but that doesn't detract from the fact that they did make their product available equally under both Windows and non-windows platforms alike, nor that that factor probably played a role in their format gainaing as much acceptance as it did.
They still suck, but having everything in a WMA format locked to Windows only players via Microsoft DRM would suck one hell of a lot worse.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Real never made their own codec to begin with, Dolby did. Real Audio was nothing more than a 'modded' or their own implementation of the Dolby patented and licencable AC3net version of AC3 codec thats used on DVDs.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
3 words:
"Buffering, Buffering, Buffering"
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
[shameless plug]Check out my stream here[/shameless plug] ;)
I would use Realplayer except for one thing: To me, it is the most annoying media player ever. It is always bugging me to upgrade or some stupid popup. Finally I took it off my Win box. If something requires me to use Real to view it, I don't bother. It isn't worth cleaning up the mess afterwards.
As of today, Penny Arcade had a newspost from Tycho that takes a paragraph at the bottom to disparage Real and plug RealAlternative like so many Slashdotters have already done here.
On a pretty much unrelated topic, I thought it might also be interesting to point out that none of the major media players, as far as I can tell, suffer from the buffering which has been the butt of so many (!) jokes in this topic already. All of them have some feature (under different names, of course) that allows them to build up their playback buffers as fast as the Internet connection will allow, which basically gives you minutes of buffer after only a short period of time. Borders on progressive download, I guess. That and RealPlayer 10 has a feature that allows you to cache a user-specified amount of the past stream, even for live streams.
Perhaps I'm too quick to consider forgiving Real for their privacy issues, but as far as playback quality goes (both in terms of streaming and codecs), bashing Real for being bad at that would be just plain misinformed.
I think I need to start working on a new RFC..."Proper methods of blaming Microsoft for your failed business." Real's problems are even deeper and fundamental than the fact that it's player is an invasive piece of crap...the format sucks. There, I've said it. Yes, it's smaller and more bandwidth-friendly, but it's the most pixelated, artifacted piece of bandwidth-friendly crap you're ever likely to try to view with a microscope. At least, that's how it used to be, I haven't installed a version since I noticed that the TWO tray apps it installs take up over 32M of RAM while running. Thanks, but no thanks...
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
Its the same technology that Intuit tried and gave up on. Macromedia writes outside your format, possibly risking the stability of your system and data. They team that with onerous verification, so if you do format your drive, you have to allocate a hour to deal with 'customer service' in order to reinstall your software. Flash in the Plan
try { session.removeAttribute("information1"); if (flag != null && flag.equals("reply")) session.removeAttribute("information2"); //kill the session
System.out.println("session id is " + session.getId());
session.invalidate(); //do the INSERT in database
doInsert( nick_name, comment_title, version_list,
comment_pulldown, comment_area, paren, flag, allowHTML);
}
catch (SQLException sq)
{
sq.printStackTrace();
}
I was duped by Car Talk into installing Microsoft Windows.
I love to listen to Car Talk and, naturally, finding them on the web made me very happy. Unfortunetly clicking on the link for one of their broadcasts made my browser give me the middle finger and tell me that I can't play that file and to go to such and such a place to download it.
I went to such and such place and found that while the player was free and easy to find I had to install something call Microsoft Windows in order to use it.
So, figuring that sense the player is free then Microsoft Windows should be free too, I went looking for it.
What, funny I can't find it anywhere. This must be how the troops looking for the bin laden guy feel. I had to shell out $299 and I couldn't even download it.
The fed-ex guy was nice enough, but what is this Microsoft Windows that requires such a large package?
Opening it, I found a beautifully colored green box and inside of that a single CD with a small booklet and a insert with extremely small writing. Figuring that the extremly small writing was the warrenty to protect me if this Microsoft Windows should fail or break in some fashion I proceeded to install the software. BTW, I run Linux.
Popping the CD into my computer I clicked on the CD on my desktop and found the install program. Funny, a binary install program. These programmers must be good to have written there install routines in C. I clicked on it and nothing. I click again and still nothing. So I decide to RTFM.
What! Microsoft Windows is an Operating System. Why would some force me to purchase and Operating System just so I can listen to their show over the internet. I've been duped by the Car Talk guys! Now where is the address of Duey, Cheatem and How so I can sue them.
Just for that very reason. Get every format under the sun.
And there is a gain in sound quality at the same bitrate, but I wouldn't expect you to know what things like "noise floor" and "spectral flattening + DCT vs. filter banks" means... so I'll skip the technical discussion and just assert that the OGGs I make sound better than the MP3s I labouriously made of CDs and they took up 40% less space, so I felt like a JACKASS having done all the work previously to only throw it all away, because I knew I'd never be able to stand it after the third listen.
MP3 is a dead technology. Use it only when you have a hardware decoder and you're forced to use it, because vorbis is superior in every way (including computational complexity during decode).
It's not about being different, it's about knowing a good thing when you see it, and supporting it. HOW THE FUCK CAN IT BECOME DEFACTO IF NO ONE DARES TO USE IT?
Well I dare goddamn it, and I double dare you.
If no one did that, then we'd be using MP3s with it's dumb-ass channel coupling for fucking EVER, not moving on.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Right, if only Theora was finished already. They need your help! PS: Real's Helix Player will have Theora support.
WE DON'T NEED NO BLOG CONTROL.
I used to do that too. I found a few other undocumented parameters that way. I think FDISK /STATUS was one of them, to view your partition info.
- Eric, InvisibleRobot.com
I don't remember FORMAT /MBR. I used to use FDISK /MBR a lot, especially to recover users workstations from certain viruses, though I don't think I've used it in the past 5 years.
- Eric, InvisibleRobot.com
One of my work-related projects required me to sort of crash-course myself in the FAT filesystem, and the one thing it made me notice, above all else, is just how many places in the filesystem you can safely stuff little turds of data. (From the good ole days to today, 'turds'--little bits of state-indicating data--are used by some software anti-copy routines, shareware (to prevent reinstalling for another 30 free days), etc., to store hidden information about previous installs)
/MBR will make short work of it. (So, smarter paranoid shareware guy would stuff the turd in an unused partition table entry, where /MBR won't touch it. Who but ubergeeks has 4 primary partitions on a drive, anyway?)
If I didn't have better things to do, I'd try my hand at writing a bootsector program, just because it would be so simple. But back on that data-stuffing. Need just a bit? 'Reserved' bits all over, that official whitepapers specifically caution everyone to ignore. Reserved bytes, even, not just in the bootsector, but in the partition tables, BPBs and just about anywhere else you can think of. Want to create a *really* hidden file? Forget the Hidden/System/etc. attribute bits, put it in the root directory and mark it as a Volume ID. Yeah, there's only *supposed* to be one Volume ID file (0 bytes), but.... ("Sadly", at least Windows 2000 chkdsk will set the VolumeID file at the beginning of the root back to 0 bytes if it's changed...don't know if it will check for extras though. I think it's even less likely that it will look for a file marked VolumeID stuffed inside a subdirectory somewhere).
On a big FAT32 drive, 0xFFFFF7 (just from memory here, you may want to double-check that I have enough Fs) can be an allocatable cluster number. However, it also happens to be the FAT32 code for 'bad cluster'; so this cluster (if it exists for the particular drive size/formatting) is not actually allocatable for data. So there's another place for a really big turd. Many disks are not actually bootable (basically any drive with no OS on it, floppy disks that aren't explicitly 'Boot floppies', extra non-boot HDDs for porn and MP3 storage), but they all contain an executable boot sector. (It's usually a piece of useless code that prints "Missing Operating system" or some similar message to your screen.) There's another 448(?) bytes that could be put to better use by paranoid shareware guy, although FDISK
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
I stopped using Real's free player, and never went near the paid versions, after downloading the free player sometime in '98 (I think) using dialup. It took over half an hour to download the program, and lo!, next month the program had 'expired' and wanted me to download the same damn program all over again. I quickly realized that Real had deliberately expired the old program for no damn reason other than to be a nuisance.
Which kind of explains the purpose of all the other versions of the Real player that came out afterwards; to make watching video as much of a nuisance as possible.
I might've been a computer newbie, but I wouldn't touch the software after that.
Yes indeed, the activation/spyware crappola that Intuit bought into and used for TurboTax 2002 did in fact write stuff to "unused" sectors on your hard drive. This, of course, caused bazillions of problems, and uncountable instances of user backlash. Many (including myself) bought TaxCut (from H&R Block) that year instead.
I'm happy to report, however, that Intuit saw the light (or had it beaten into them). There is no spyware/activation software in TurboTax 2003. I managed to "cool off" over a year (and it took almost that long!), and have acceded to re-becoming a loyal TurboTax user once more. TaxCut was OK, but just not as polished or as easy to use as TurboTax.
The big killer for real was not keeping up with technology.
In the beginning, they did OK because their audio codec was good for the time, and there wasn't really any other streaming software out there.
Their whole reason to be in audio streaming went away when MP3, Icecast, winamp, and xmms became available. Free software with a much better codec. Ogg-vorbis is out there too, and the various free software has been adapted to use it as well. Audio is a solved problem, there's no room for Real there.
Their best shot now is to at LEAST make the video player and the video DEcoder free as in beer. The codec needs to be in the form of a development library with a sane API available for Linux, *BSD, Mac, and Windows. Then they can bill themselves as the streaming video to use if you want to make sure everyone can view it.
Even better would be to release the decoder as Frtee software and license the encoder/production tools.
Their protocol needs to be cachable for non-live content as well, and aggregatable for live content. Then they need to start talking to cable and broadband providers. Provide them free proxys in exchange for favorable treatment (both DSL and Cable providers will see value in reducing their external traffic)
This won't work if the free client stuff is buried under 40 layers of clicks designed to trick you into paying for something. Also, no tricky 'opt-in' crap that defaults to 'in' and client software that practically welds itself to your machine. There is no real money to be made on the client side anyway.